Paul Poiret

And Presenting Paul Poiret!

/ Adam Lid / 6 Comments

Poiret Sultan

Yesterday was a big day for me, giving two new presentations at Costume College. The first presentation was entitled “The King of Fashion: Paul Poiret, The Early Years”, a survey of Paul Poiret as a couturier/designer during the years 1898 through 1914. Researching for this presentation was not the easiest and it seemed to raise more questions than answers. Poiret was certainly a force in fashion during the years from 1906 through 1914 and although he continued to work intermittently through the First World War and into the 1920s, it was never quite the same.

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One of the most interesting aspects in researching Poiret was that he was not only a fashion designer (dictator, as some critics would charge), but he was one of the first “lifestyle designers” where they worked in all aspects design to include perfume, shoes, furniture,  rugs, textiles, and even interior design.

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Poiret’s designs and his claims were sometimes questionable, if not controversial and nowhere is this more evident when in 1905-1906 he set out to introduce styles that ran counter to what was in fashion at the time. Most notable was his advocating a Nouveau Directoire style based on draping rather than carefully constructed flat patterns. This meant flowing fabrics, cut into rectangles and seamed with straight seems. The precisely tailored, form-fitting styles characteristic of the early 1900s were rejected in favor of loose, flowing lines and this meant the elimination of the corset as a major foundation garment.

Corset Before and After Poiret

From s-bend corset to…

The s-bend corset was a complete abomination to Poiret, declaring that women had been turned into “decorated bundles” who believed that they must hide their bodies under layers of fabrics. Poiret characterized the corset’s demise as “liberation”:

It was in the name of Liberty that I brought about my first revolution, be deliberately laying siege to the corset.

But if there was to be no corset, what then? Poiret is largely silent on this subject and I was unable to uncover anything definitive except that it women were now to wear a form of girdle and bra that functioned as a “corset light” but was flexible enough to allow a full range of movements. It’s an area that could definitely needs further research.

Turning to Poiret’s Nouveau Directoire style, it was definitely a reaction characteristic of fashion change. Below are some illustrations from a catalog that Poiret put out in 1908:

And here are the dresses themselves:

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The above is just a small part of what I presented and I hope to present a revised and improved version for next year’s Costume College. I will say that the presentation was a pleasure to give although I wound up ending early (better than running over, I guess) but that’s OK. Stay tuned for more. 🙂

 

Almost Ready For Costume College…

/ Adam Lid / Leave a comment

Isincerely apologize for things being quiet here but I have been in hibernation for the past few weeks furiously working on a series of presentations that I will be giving at Costume College. Why the last minute rush? Well, unfortunately life has a habit of getting in the way and with our relocation and all, time has been at a premium. Costume College is an annual three-day costuming arts convention sponsored by the Costumer’s Guild West and it covers all periods and genres.

Adam 1918

Last year, I gave a presentation on American military uniforms entitled “US Army Uniforms, 1915 – 1918” and I had such a fun time with it that I decided to give an expanded version this year and this is scheduled for Friday July 28. But wait, there’s more…

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On Saturday July 29, I will also be giving presentations on Paul Poiret, entitled “The King of Fashion: The World of Paul Poiret” which will give an overview of his early career. Also, I will be presenting “Haute Couture: The Early Years” where I give an overview on the rise of haute couture during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries (1870 through roughly 1905) both in terms of designers and the various styles.

Stay tuned for more!

1914 – Couturiers Under Arms

/ Adam Lid / 1 Comment

On August 2, 1914, France formally began mobilizing its forces in response to Germany’s declaration of war. As part of the mobilization process, reservists were recalled to the Army and soon all of France was in turmoil as men reported to their pre-assigned deports and were issued their uniforms, arms, and equipment. One such reservist was Paul Poiret and on August 4 he reported for duty, having first closed his couture house.

Robes of Paul Poiret 1908

From “The Robes of Paul Poiret” (1908), illustrated by Paul Iribe.

When war broke out, Poiret was 35 years old and still had an outstanding reserve obligation so he very quickly found himself in uniform. By his own admission, he was a somewhat indifferent soldier when he had initially entered the Army in 1900 to fulfill his military service obligation, characterizing it as a complete waste of time (in 1900, all French males had a military service obligation of two years active service although under certain circumstances, some soldiers only had to serve for one year). But that was in peacetime; things were different now that a war was on and France was being invaded.

After a series of misadventures due to bureaucratic foul-ups, Poiret was assigned the task of working on the production of uniforms and one of his most notable achievements was creating a new design for a greatcoat that saved four hours of labor and nearly a yard of fabric. Moreover, Poiret was instrumental in setting up a production facility for producing greatcoats that employed many of his former employees who had been put out of work with the closure of Poiret’s fashion house.

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The P1914 Greatcoat, First Pattern (aka “The Poiret”). Poiret was instrumental in designing this coat and facilitating its production.

Ironically, when Poiret initially arrived at his regiment, his occupation was noted in military records as being that of a tailor- no doubt pigeonholed as a result of his work as a couturier- and set to work as a regimental tailor, responsible to ensuring that soldiers’ uniforms fit correctly to regulation. Ironically, he had no skill in this area and when he attempted to inform the military authorities, he was dismissed as a malcontent and trouble-maker (during this time, many fashion designers have little or no sewing ability and even today, this is common in the fashion industry).  Eventually, the situation was resolved but it added to Poiret’s dislike of the military.

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Paul Poiret in uniform, Vogue, October 15, 1914

Poiret eventually re-opened his fashion house in 1919 but the damage had been done, both in terms of the direct effects of lost business and more indirectly in that he had become increasingly out of touch with fashion developments (four years is a long time in the fashion industry). Worse, Poiret had been unable to exercise much influence over developments in fashion and it simply moved on without him (most notably, new designers such as Coco Chanel were able to take advantage of wartime conditions to establish herself as a new force in the French fashion industry). Although Poiret was still able to create a number of striking designs during the 1920s, he was never able to achieve the over-arching prominence he had enjoyed prior to the war.

The Philosophy Of Paul Poiret – Principles Of Correct Dress

/ Adam Lid / Leave a comment

Poiret_Studio

Paul Poiret was one of the most influential designers during the early 20th Century and he played a major role in shaping haute couture and the fashion industry as we know it today. Most notably, Poiret helped ensure the demise of the corset, and especially it’s most recent incarnation in the form of the s-bend corset, and introduced new designs that moved fashion away from highly structured silhouettes to more loose ones based on draping rather than tailoring. Also, Poiret was noted for the development of the hobble skirt and the “lampshade dress” as well as incorporating oriental elements in his designs.

Here we see just one example of the “lampshade” dress style from 1912:

Poiret, Evening Dress, 1912; Victoria & Albert Museum (T.385&A-1976)
Poiret, Evening Dress, 1912; Victoria & Albert Museum (T.385&A-1976)

However, lost in all of Poiret’s achievements is consideration of his ideas, or “philosophy” were about dress itself. One charge that is often laid on haute couture and their designers is that wealth automatically equates to good or “correct” dress. To Poiret:

This art has little in common with money. The woman whose resources are limited has no more cause for being dowdily dressed than the woman who is rich has reason to believe that she is beautifully gowned. Except in so far as money can procure the services of a good dressmaker, of an artist who can judge his customer’s style and garb her accordingly, the wealthy woman stands no better chance of being correctly dressed than the woman who must turn every penny before spending it. [1]

While the above is almost a truism when it comes to fashion, at least today, it’s still revealing coming from the man who had crowned himself the “King of Fashion.” Poiret further expands on this theme, stating that dressing is:

…not an easy art to acquire. It demands a certain amount of intelligence, certain gifts, some of them among the rarest, perhaps—it requires a real appreciation of harmony, of colors, ingenious ideas, absolute tact, and, above all, a love of the beautiful and clear perception of values. It may be resumed in two words, good taste. [2]

So, what is “good taste” to Poiret?

Taste is by no means developed by riches; on the contrary, the increasing demands of luxury are killing the art of dressing. Luxury and good taste are in inverse proportion to each other. The one will kill the other as machinery is crowding out handwork. In fact, it has come so far that many persons confuse the two terms. Because a material is expensive they find it beautiful; because it is cheap they think it must be ugly. [3]

The above is as true today as it was back then and we see it in the fashion nearly every day. Naturally, “good taste” can be somewhat subjective, depending on time and place but it still gets to the idea that one cannot simply buy their way into good taste, or by extension, good fashion.

Here we see a sample of the fashion illustrations that Poiret commissioned by various avant garde artists such as Paul Iribe. Here we see a definite revival of the simple vertical lines of the empire dress style:

Paul Iribe, Les Robes de Paul Poiret, Plate III (1908)
Paul Iribe, Les Robes de Paul Poiret, Plate I (1908)

Poiret also notes that:

In order not to appear entirely at odds with her surroundings and the place where she lives, a woman is obliged to follow fashions to a certain extent. But let that be within certain bounds. What does it matter if tight skirts be the fashion if your figure demands a wide one? Is it not important to dress so as to bring out your good points rather than to reveal the bad? Can any idea of being fashionable make up for the fact of being ridiculous? [4]

And there it it- Poiret gets to the heart of the matter by pointing out that fashion is about emphasizing one’s good points rather than the bad, something that holds true today as it did then. The above has been only a small sample of the depth of Poiret’s fashion “philosophy” but it’s interesting to see that his ideas still hold true today in many ways and as such, they represent a distinct break with the 19th Century.

1. Principles of Correct Dress, Florence Hull Winterburn, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1914, p. 237.
2. Ibid., pp. 237-238
3. Ibid., p. 239
4. Ibid., pp. 240-241


Paul Poiret- The Early Years

/ Adam Lid / Leave a comment

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Paul Poiret was one of the most influential fashion designers of the early 20th Century and played a major role in moving fashion away from the corset and its highly structural silhouette. But before his rise as Le Magnifique or the “King of Fashion,” Poiret got his start in the fashion industry as a free-lance fashion illustrator, selling his work to the various fashion houses in Paris. Later, in 1898, Poiret landed his first major position with Maison Doucet.

An early fashion sketch by Paul Poiret.

An early design by Paul Poiret.

While the above design definitely reads “1890s”, one can see a hint of what was to come with its clean vertical lines and the tiered skirt.

A later design pictured in the April 1, 1906 issue of Femina.

A later design for a Costume Tailleur advertisement pictured in the April 1, 1906 issue of Femina.

Here again we see the use of clean lines. The use of a diagonal check pattern also creates an interesting effect. It would have been interesting to see what colors the original outfit were. This is a tailored look that predates the Oriental influences that were to take hold in the following years. In future posts, we will be exploring Paul Poiret more thoroughly but it’s interesting to see what was happening before his ideas took hold in the fashion world.